Spy Blog - SpyBlog.org.uk

X-rays that can bounce off your skin eh! So how come they can penetrate a thick coat but then just 'bounce off' your skin!!!!!

What are the long-term, or indeed short-term, health consequences of this diabolical machine of the devil?

Problem is, the British public is so bloody gullible that they'll think it's a good idea!

And another thing: the images might be immediately deleted now, but if this 'electronic pervert' ever does gain acceptance then the images WILL NOT be deleted. If, as will happen, someone sneaks a gun through, there will be 'a need' to review the images of the perpetrator, if only for the purposes of a subsequent enquiry.

Some technical info regarding X-ray exposure of "this diabolical machine of the devil"...

http://www.rapiscan.com/secure1000.html

http://www.rapiscan.com/secure1000safety.html

Assuming that this is indeed the machine being used at Heathrow Terminal 4, the safety claims are those of the manufacturer in the USA, and have not been independently proven by any United Kingdom radiological health protection authority.
c.f.

http://www.spy.org.uk/spyblog/archives/2004/08/xray_imaging_un.html

for more discussions and comments about this:

""10microREM per scan" is what the US manufacturer claim in their sales literature.

How exactly is this calculated ? Are they averaging the intensity of the ionising radiation over the whole nominal volume of the scanner cubicle ? Does the scanning beam follow the usual pattern of distribution with an orders of magnitude higher intensity in the central spot compared with the outer edges of the beam ? Are there other hotspots produced by the shielding configuration of the machine ? What about the dosage that an operator gets from being nearby, day in, day out ?

Maybe all these questions have been asked and answered, but these machines have not been investigated or approved by competent United Kingdom radiological health authorities."

"US scanner manufacturers are sheltering behind the astonishing SAFETY Act (Support Anti-Terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies Act) of 2002, which, if they get on the approved list, shelters them from public liability court actions if either their technology simply does not work, and bombs or weapons are let through by their equipment, or if they accidently damage the health of members of the general public or of security operational staff as a result of any design or manufacturing defects or negligence."

Even if this technology is safe enough to use on humans as opposed to baggage or freight, there is simply no need to create, store or distribute intrusive "naked" images of adults or especially children, in order to detect suspicious items which may or may not be guns or drugs or explosives.

How does knowing that the suspicious item is in the left pocket as opposed to the right pocket make any difference to a susbsequent pat down search by a security guard ? They would be incompetent if they did not search both pockets after a "suspicious object" alarm has been given by the scanner. There is no cost saving or time saving or extra security to be gained by "see under your clothes" imaging even though it is technically possible.

What's the current legal position on subjecting people to x-rays? Presumably you can't be forced to undergo an x-ray, but I expect the get out for the paranoid airport management will be "no x-ray, no flight"!

I wonder if this government is aware that items can be inserted in certain body cavities and thus escape the xrays.
Does this then mean that everyone will have to have internal examinations.

OVER MY DEAD BODY CRONE BLAIR ET AL.
READ MY LIPS.....

Another though on a more disruptive note....
Is one able to demand a copy of the scan picture, based on the data protection act.
Surely we are entitled to a copy like we are to our medical records etc.

John Lettice has written an article in The Register about the lack of offical UK testing or advice on possible health risks of these x-ray scanners

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/18/blunkett_xray_blank/

It's insidiously intrusive. Right now the government has vans concealing x-ray equipment they drive around and are able to surreptiously see in you house. There's a lot more money to be made producing devices to protect us from these evil devices.

X-ray systems that might be able to see into your house from a van in the street, are probably confined to devices for examining lorry or shipping containers, with obvious health and safety implications for anybody nearby, including the operators, for anything so powerful.

However, it probably is feasible to have a van driving around with a Passive Millimetre Wave imager, which can see through your or your children's clothes as you walk down the street.

Sir John Stevens, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police seemed to be claiming that such tests had been conducted in secret on the streets of London in his interview with Sir David Frost, but these are not supposedly actually operationsl.

http://www.spy.org.uk/spyblog/archives/2004/01/no_passive_mill.html

This military technology is also being developed to "see through walls" for hostage siege situations and military house to house fighting, so it might just be possible to see inside your house from the street.

However, when the planned 63Ghz high speed wireless data network, promising up to 400Mbs internet access, gets strung from 150,000 lamp posts, as part of the National Roads Telecommunications Services project

http://www.spy.org.uk/spyblog/archives/2004/04/passive_millime.html

many homes will literally be floodlit with signals which a Passive Millimeter Wave imager can make use of to extend its effective range or penetration through walls.

John Lettice of The Register, has published an eye witness account about going through the Terminal 4 x-ray scanner, and the lack of information that is being given to passengers.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/03/x-ray_pilot_update/

I have sent a written complaint to the National Radiological Protection Board. We'll see what they have to say, if anything!

Hello!

Look at Heathrow Airport terminal 4; a similar stripping scanner that produces a nude image of passengers has made its debut
I am not sure but I thing the machine is on a trial according to a report (www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1348172,00.html)

Last Friday February 25 on my way flying back to Washington DC between 1-2:30 PM I was hand picked in a queue of about 100 people most of them white. I was the third persons (black males) to have been put aside by a security agent instructing us to go through an additional set of security system different from the one used for the general public.
Inside the box, the agent instructed me to get red of my backpack and jacket, to adopt a strange posture… and to spin round.

I was of cause offended, shocked and humiliated by such practice, I made this comment to the agent: “I noticed that you are hand picking only black people for this additional security boot, aren’t you?” In response, he got furious and said:"We are only doing what the government asks us to do". His voice and tone became intimidating and menacing saying that I risk arrest if I resisted security measure. I was embarrassed in front of hundred of white people some of them just laughing. After I went through the double security system, I tried to talk to one of the supervisor to complain about the practice explaining to him that it is frankly unnecessary and dangerous to use a selective measure base on passenger skin color. He said in response: “ if you are going to Nigeria, you are likely to be pick because most people forming the queue at that precise time are passengers departing to Nigeria” but I was not going to Nigeria and we were the only 3 Blacks males in the queue of more than 100 people.

Security in the Airports is everybody concern, public safety in the air depends on it. However uptake of naked scanning based on the color of your skin and your destination;in the area where the subjects are not likely capable to be aware, know or complain about it, is despicable.
Certainly the general public would resent it and file complaint about it, so the easiest way but not less cynical would be to do the test on big Black males departing to Africa

The Sunday Times has a report about the shocked reaction of adult passengers going through the new low intensity X-ray scanner at Heathrow Airport Terminal 4,
“I was quite shocked by what I saw,” said Gary Cook, 40, a graphic designer from Shaftesbury, Dorset. “I felt a bit embarrassed looking at the image”.

A female passenger, said: “It was really horrible. It does not leave much to the imagination because you are virtually naked….”

A system of scanning producing naked images in a trial in a country predominantly inhabited by white people, practicing its test on very few Black male departing to nowhere in Africa where you might never here from them again, is in my opinion an erosion of English great traditional hospitality and tolerance.

It frankly a given stereotype: nude Black male; voyeurism, perverse eyes, pornography all in the name of British government.

Who would have though it? I have been living in the USA for the past 14 years; I could not wait to come back home. The scanner might be an American made machine. Images showing one category of passenger without clothes would certainly be illegal under the civil right and sexual offences acts in America. In my opinion, United State is one of the best places in the western hemisphere for a Black person to live in… thank God!

There is no excuse for any staff at Heathrow Airport to have discriminated against you on racial grounds - that is also illegal in the United Kingdom.

In theory they should have offered you the option of a "normal" pat down and metal detector search.

If they are forcing anybody into the alleged "low intensity backscatter X-Ray imager" then this must be resisted.

I have just posted this under a different section of this web site, and would like to repeat it here as well, in order to alert other air passengers.

'I am white, 60 years of age. I passed through LHR terminal 4, outbound on 23/3/2005. I was asked to 'step this way' by a young man when approaching security. I was led to the left, my family of two sons and my dear wife had to continue straight on. My wife did notice my being led to the left, hesitated, but was told to continue forward. This took about 2-3 seconds!!

In a few steps I found myself in a small curtained room, all in grey, with a big grey box just ahead. This box was covered in the same grey carpet as was on the floor. I was then told, 'Would I like to volunteer for a body scan'?. No explaination was made at all. I had no time to think - all I knew was that there was an implied threat that if I did not comply, then what was to happen???? If I had started to question this request how would I be treated??

Not a nice experience I can tell you. I would VERY much liken it to films I have seen of the Jews being 'processed' by the Nazi thugs.

There were NO signs to advise anything about my 'rights' as far as I could see.'

All this is confirmed by a relative of mine who is an airline security officer. He attended a DfT security training course and was shown similar "strip naked" technology. When he questioned the privacy implications, all others present appeared shocked that anyone should question the technology, the "official" line being that any measure is acceptable for airline security.

My relative spotted the scanner at LHR Terminal 4 Departures recently and steered himself and his wife past it unchallenged.

We must all strenuously resist any attempt to put us through this process. Talk of arresting you for refusing a security examination is just bluster; let's just point out that we don't have a problem with a pat-down search, being the accepted international standard, but they aren't going to get naked pictures to fulfil their own perversions.

i am a Brit, and would be interested in finding a position in one of our Uk Airports, i have been the operator of the Rapiscan 1000 for the past 8 months working with the US Military.

The Metropolitan Police are meant to have a couple of such units in a transportable inflatable tent, for raiding pubs and schools(!) with.

Dear Sir/Madam,

We are looking of the manufacturer of Baggage X-Ray, Scanner Machine. So, you are requested to send us the list of the Address of the same manufacturer of the World.

Thanks and best regards